Most conservatives realize the political influences of major colleges and universities usually stray to the left. It’s a phenomenon that seemed to start in the late 1960s during the “Hippie” and “Peacenik” era when everybody was turning on and tuning out.

Except for the leftist radicals who didn’t mind letting blood and using murder as tools of their anti-American agenda.

When it actually started is of no consequence, but what is scary is how it has proliferated the last few decades, and especially, under Obama. I suspect it has grown exponentially because of a climate of disgust with America on the far left, her power and riches, an empowerment felt by leftists that see European socialism as a road to the future.

There is no better example of this than when one looks at the Criminal Justice Initiative (CJI) program at Columbia University.

Perry Chiaramonte wrote a stunning piece on this program at the Ivy League school, which was published Thursday online at FoxNews.com.

The CJI was co-founded in 2009 by former Weather Underground operative and Columbia adjunct professor Kathy Boudin.

For those unfamiliar with Boudin, she was imprisoned 20 years for her part in the killings of two police officers and a security guard in an attempted robbery in October 1981 of a Brinks armored car while she was an operative for the radical leftist group, the Weather Underground.

“The Weather Underground, was responsible for numerous bombings in the 1960s and 1970s, including ones at the Pentagon, Capitol Building and New York’s police headquarters,” Chiaramonte wrote. “The group was co-founded by William Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, who themselves went on to long careers in academia in Chicago. The couple was appointed the legal guardians of Boudin’s son while she was in prison and has been linked to the early days of President Obama’s political career.”

For the gory details of Boudin’s criminal life and socialist upbringing, go to: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/04/The-Gory-Details-About-Terrorist-Teacher-Kathy-Boudin.

Ayers was among the demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic National Convention as a member of the SDS. The following year, he helped found the Weather Underground. Later that year, the group took responsibility for bombing several police cars in Chicago. By early 1970, many members of the group were in hiding, including Ayers.

The organization was rocked by tragedy in March of that year when three members – Theodore Gold, Terry Robbins and Ayers’ then-girlfriend, Diana Oughton – were killed while making bombs in New York City.

Boudin was one of only two survivors in that townhouse explosion.

The CJI Associate Director in Boudin’s program is Cheryl Wilkins, who, according to Chiaramonte, “…was convicted for her role in a 1996 gunpoint hijacking of a Federal Express truck in Harlem, in which she served as the getaway driver. Wilkins served a 12-year sentence for robbery and assault at Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan.”

Chiaramonte went on to report: “Ayers and his wife were even in attendance for CJI’s ‘Removing the Bars’ conference in 2012.

Also in attendance were Angela Davis and other Weather Underground alumni.

“The CJI holds frequent on-campus events, where a common theme is a curious vision of prison reform that seems not to include punishment,” Chiaramonte wrote. “Some of the panel discussions at these events include: ‘How do we DE-carcerate?’ and ‘Society’s Perceptions of the Formerly Incarcerated.’”

There are others who are ex-cons who work with the CJI.

“The program’s ties to the Weather Underground are deep. In addition to Boudin’s involvement and the visit from Ayers and Dohrn, other former high-level members of the Weather Underground were invited to speak at CJI events,” Chiaramonte reported. “They included Russell Neufeld, who went on to become an anti-death penalty attorney, and Laura Whitehorn, who spoke at an October 2011 forum called the ‘Troy Davis Teach-in.’

Not surprisingly, Columbia does not list any of Boudin’s or Wilkins’ pasts in its faculty directory.

Wonder what some of those parents forking out $43,000 a year in tuition think about that?

Chiaramonte closed his article with the words of John Hanchar, the brother-in-law of Nyack Police Officer Edward O’ Grady, who was killed in the Brink’s robbery Boudin participated in.

“That’s the worst thing I could have heard,” Hanchar said. “My sister had three children, and she raised them into good people and what (Boudin) did was take their father from them.

“It’s terrible that she has murderers working with her at a school,” he continued. “I could see if they had someone speak who committed robbery and served their time, but murderers? It’s not right.”

When people or Democratic talking heads on TV tell us universities aren’t biased and don’t teach leftist views, remember Columbia University – a university that exalts murderers and anti-American terrorists.

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